Dressing Down

Kamilah Aisha Moon

1973 –

2021

—to Shirley Q. Liquor, Drag Queen in Blackface

When you’re gay in Dixie,

you're a clown of a desperate circus.

Sometimes the only way to be like daddy

is to hate like him—

hope your brothers laugh

instead of shoot,

wrap a confederate skirt around your waist.

You traded glamour for nasty tricks—

dethroning your mammy’s image for dollars

that will never cover so much debt,

unraveling years she lost

loving you for a living.

Someone else used to do this before. Someone responsible, someone who loved me enough to protect me from my own filth piling up. But I’m over 40 now & live alone, & if I don’t remember it’s Thursday & rise with the cardinals & bluejays calling up the sun, I’m stuck with what’s left rotting for another week. I swing my legs like anchors over the side of the bed & use the wall for leverage to stand, shuffle to the bathroom. In summer, I slide into a pair of shorts & flip flops, wandering room to room to collect what no longer serves me. I shimmy the large kitc

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired! She sat across the desk from me, squirming. It was stifling. My suite runs hot but most days it is bearable. This student has turned in nothing, rarely comes to class. When she does, her eyes bore into me with a disdain born long before either of us. She doesn’t trust anything I say. She can’t respect my station, the words coming out of these lips, this face. My breathing is an affront.

Poems

Dressing Down

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Dressing Down

More by this poet

Disbelief

Taking Out the Trash

Fannie Lou Hamer

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